LONDON (AP) – A year after they last saw each other, Prince William and his brother, Prince Harry, set aside their charged relationship when they said goodbye to their grandfather on Saturday.
The brothers were gloomy and silent as they walked together in a procession behind Prince Philip’s coffin before his funeral at Windsor Castle with their father, Prince Charles, and other relatives. After the service, they were seen chatting and walking together.
It was the first time the brothers had met in public since Harry resigned from the royal service and moved to the US in early 2020 with his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their son Archie.
The tension between Harry (36) and William (38) emerged after Harry and Meghan gave a revealing interview with Oprah Winfrey, American presenter of the American program, last month. The couple portrayed the royal family as indifferent to Meghan’s mental health battle, and Harry describes his relationship with William as’ currently ‘space’.
On Saturday, William and Harry walked in silence on either side of their cousin, Peter Phillips, as they joined other senior royals in Philip’s funeral procession. At one point, Phillips fell slightly behind to make the brothers walk side by side – a visual echo of the moment when the couple, as boys, in 1997, walked behind the coffin of their mother, Princess Diana, in another royal funeral broadcast around the world.
The brothers faced each other in the St. George Chapel sat for the funeral, which was attended by only 30 people due to coronavirus restrictions. While William sat next to his wife Kate, Harry was on his own because Meghan was pregnant with their second child and was advised by her doctor not to undertake the long journey.
After that, Harry, William and Kate strolled outside the chapel. Moments later, the brothers walk alone together while Kate talks to Zara Tindall, another of Queen Elizabeth II’s eight grandchildren who is William and Harry’s cousin.
Rumors of a rift between the brothers – William, the heir, and Harry, the ‘savings’, have been circulating at least since 2019. That was when Harry and Meghan separated from the Royal Foundation, originally as the brothers’ joint charity business, to set up their own platform. In that year, Harry said he loved his brother very much, but they were “on different paths” and had “good days” and “bad days.”
Many believe that William was angry and hurt over Harry’s decision to speak so publicly about the royal family’s issues during the Winfrey interview. In one explosive allegation, they said a family member – not the Queen or Philip – expressed ‘concern’ about Archie’s possible skin color before he was born. Meghan has a black mother and a white father.
Days after the interview aired, William insisted that ‘we are not a racist family’, saying he had not spoken to Harry since the broadcast.
It is unclear whether the death of their grandfather will help the brothers heal their rift. It was not immediately clear how long Harry, who had been isolating himself since the arrival of California early in California, in the native country’s coronavirus restriction.
Saturday’s funeral was limited to just 30 people, all of whom had to wear masks, sit in family bubbles and stay socially aloof in the same church that hosted hundreds of people for the 2018 Harry and Meghan royal wedding. And Britain’s continued coronavirus restrictions could limit how much opportunity the brothers will have to make up for their differences.
“Because of COVID’s limitations, it’s hard to come up with decent conservations,” said royal biographer Penny Junor. “It’s probably pretty hard to sit down, because usually they would go over a beer and discuss things.”
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